Theatre and Performance Studies News

TOP STORY: TaPRA 2025 Conference to be hosted at Warwick

We're delighted to announce that the annual Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) conference will be hosted by Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick between 27 and 29 August 2025. The conference will mark both the 20th birthday of TaPRA and the 50th anniversary of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick. Our conference keynotes, plenary panels, artistic activity, conference dinner and programmed events will speak to the themes of milestones and markers, focussing on celebrations, festivities, spectacle and joy. We'll look forward to welcoming you to Warwick next year!

To keep up to date with the conference plans, please visit our dedicated TaPRA pages here.

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Prof. Nadine Holdsworth guest edits a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on amateur theatre and performance

Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 2017, a special issue titled 'Theatre, Performance and The Amateur Turn' guest edited by Nadine Holdsworth, Jane Milling and Helen Nicholson is now available on Taylor & Francis Online:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gctr20/current

This special issue on amateur theatre and performance is accompanied by a set of online features, free to access, at www.contemporarytheatrereview.org, that give further insight into research methods on this subject. These include a collection of images and accompanying stories that came out of ‘Evocative Objects’ workshops held with amateur theatre-makers throughout the UK; a conversation between Nadine Holdsworth and eighty-one-year-old Arthur Aldrich, who has worked across professional and amateur contexts; an annotated slide show documenting amateur theatre in the Royal Navy compiled by Sarah Penny and Nadine Holdsworth; and Molly Flynn’s reflections on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages Initiative.

Introduction
Theatre, Performance and The Amateur Turn

Nadine Holdsworth, Jane Milling, and Helen Nicholson

pages: 4-17

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2017.1266229

Articles

The Sociable Aesthetics of Amateur Theatre

Erin Walcon and Helen Nicholson

pages: 18-33

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262851

Noh Creativity? The Role of Amateurs in Japanese Noh Theatre

Diego Pellecchia

pages: 34-45

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262848

‘The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music’: Musical Theatre at Girls’ Jewish Summer Camps in Maine, USA

Stacy Wolf

pages: 46-60

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262853

Amateur Science in Activist Performance: Towards a Slow Science

Simon Parry

pages: 61-75

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262847

‘Village Hall work can never be “Theatre”’: Amateur Theatre and The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1945-1956

Taryn Storey

pages: 76-91

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262852

Performing Failure? Anomalous Amateurs in Jérôme Bel’s Disabled Theater and The Show Must Go On 2015

Sarah Gorman

pages: 92-103

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262849

Documents

Materialities of Amateur Theatre

curated by Cara Gray and Sarah Penny

pages: 104-123

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1262850

Reviews

Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field by Sarah Bay-Cheng, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, and David Saltz

Acatia Finbow

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268780

Queer Performance and Contemporary Ireland: Dissent and Disorientation

by Fintan Walsh

Alyson Campbell

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268781

It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells ed. by Deirdre Heddon and Dominic Johnson

Antje Hildebrandt

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268782

Voices from Within: Grotowski’s Polish Collaborators ed. by Paul Allain and

Grzegorz Ziółkowski, trans. by Justyna Drobnik-Rogers, Duncan Jamieson,

and Adela Karsznia

Acting with Grotowski: Theatre as a Field for Experiencing Life by Zbigniew

Cynkutis, ed. by Paul Allain and Khalid Tyabji, trans. by Khalid Tyabji

Halina Filipowicz

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268783

Applied Theatre: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice

(Second edition) edited. by Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton;

Critical Perspectives on Applied Theory edited by Jenny Hughes and

Helen Nicholson

Maggie Inchley

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268784

Performing Contemporary Indonesia: Celebrating Identity, Constructing

Community ed. by Barbara Hatley

Matthew Isaac Cohen

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268785

The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: Through the Virtual,

Towards the Real ed. by Matthew Causey, Emma Meehan, and

Néill O’Dwyer

Rosie Klich

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2016.1268786

Backpages

The Editing of Emma Rice

Tom Cornford

Crisis Management in the Theatre of Shon Dale-Jones

Maddy Costa

Europe: A Tragedy of Love and Ideology

Andrew Haydon

Archiving Gestures of Disobedience

Farah Saleh

Remembering Annie Castledine (1939-2016)

Annabel Arden

Mighty Annie

Gerlind Reinshagen

pages:134-148

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2017.1274147

Thu 20 Apr 2017, 10:12 | Tags: Publications Prof. Nadine Holdsworth Research Impact